Continuing Issues with my Home Network

[Xanthe_2871]

My home network is having issues. Devices will complain that while they're connected to WiFi they can't find Internet. Wired devices, especially those directly connected to my 3rd party router, seems to work fine. I don't believe it's a signal strength issue either, as distance seems to be irrelevant. 90% of the time things work fine, but about once or twice a week something (usually many things) act up. 

 

I do have a lot of devices, at any one time 25-35 things are connected. As suggested on the forum in a previous post I have gone out and bought a 3rd party router. It certainly is more stable than the modem/router combo supplied by my ISP, but I expected it to have rare issues, not multiple times a week. I am currently using a Linksys EA8300 router. Is this really not sufficient? What else can I do to improve overall Network stability without buying additional routers? I've tried Wi-Fi extenders and bridging other routers like a Wi-Fi extender in the past, and I found it to just be messy and ultimately cause more headache and problem than it resolves. But I am open to suggestions.

[AbsoluteFool]

4 minutes ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

My home network is having issues. Devices will complain that while they're connected to WiFi they can't find Internet. Wired devices, especially those directly connected to my 3rd party router, seems to work fine. I don't believe it's a signal strength issue either, as distance seems to be irrelevant. 90% of the time things work fine, but about once or twice a week something (usually many things) act up. 

 

I do have a lot of devices, at any one time 25-35 things are connected. As suggested on the forum in a previous post I have gone out and bought a 3rd party router. It certainly is more stable than the modem/router combo supplied by my ISP, but I expected it to have rare issues, not multiple times a week. I am currently using a Linksys EA8300 router. Is this really not sufficient? What else can I do to improve overall Network stability without buying additional routers? I've tried Wi-Fi extenders and bridging other routers like a Wi-Fi extender in the past, and I found it to just be messy and ultimately cause more headache and problem than it resolves. But I am open to suggestions.

From what you are saying it sounds to me that you have serval routers on one network. This is never a good idea.

However with 25-35 devices all on WiFi it's quite expected to have problems like this, wifi will only handle so many requests at once. It's not exactly smart technology.

[BakugoHero]

7 hours ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

My home network is having issues. Devices will complain that while they're connected to WiFi they can't find Internet. Wired devices, especially those directly connected to my 3rd party router, seems to work fine. I don't believe it's a signal strength issue either, as distance seems to be irrelevant. 90% of the time things work fine, but about once or twice a week something (usually many things) act up. 

 

I do have a lot of devices, at any one time 25-35 things are connected. As suggested on the forum in a previous post I have gone out and bought a 3rd party router. It certainly is more stable than the modem/router combo supplied by my ISP, but I expected it to have rare issues, not multiple times a week. I am currently using a Linksys EA8300 router. Is this really not sufficient? What else can I do to improve overall Network stability without buying additional routers? I've tried Wi-Fi extenders and bridging other routers like a Wi-Fi extender in the past, and I found it to just be messy and ultimately cause more headache and problem than it resolves. But I am open to suggestions.

You need access points, not routers, you should only have one router in a home network other than a some atypical applications or routers set to operate as access points in a few ways.

 

Unless each device connected is a mumimo device then each device out of your 25-35 things is having to shout at different times or else the communication will break. 

 

For now, try to move what large use items you have over to the 5Ghz band if you haven't already. try to wire more devices if possible. 

 

Are the devices that are going out all in the same area of the house? are there any patterns to go off of? 

[Tzomb1e]

1 hour ago, BakugoHero said:

For now, try to move what large use items you have over to the 5Ghz band if you haven't already. try to wire more devices if possible.

Just to comment on this, try and make the devices you move to the 5Ghz band closer to the source access point.  The more walls the signal has to pass through, the weaker the signal with 5Ghz.  Still an issue with 2.4Ghz, but more of an issue with 5Ghz. 

 

I would be curious to have a more detailed layout of your network.  If there are multiple "routers" in the environment, your routing can fail if layer 3 packets cannot be routed properly to the primary gateway.  There could also be DNS issues at play here too, which does result in the fun "connected with no internet access" message in windows.

[BakugoHero]

1 hour ago, Tzomb1e said:

Just to comment on this, try and make the devices you move to the 5Ghz band closer to the source access point.  The more walls the signal has to pass through, the weaker the signal with 5Ghz.  Still an issue with 2.4Ghz, but more of an issue with 5Ghz. 

Good catch!

 

Very true, good advice, a bad 5Ghz signal can be worse than a 2.4 depending on other factors, so YMMV. 

[Xanthe_2871]

4 hours ago, BakugoHero said:

You need access points, not routers, you should only have one router in a home network other than a some atypical applications or routers set to operate as access points in a few ways.

 

Unless each device connected is a mumimo device then each device out of your 25-35 things is having to shout at different times or else the communication will break. 

 

For now, try to move what large use items you have over to the 5Ghz band if you haven't already. try to wire more devices if possible. 

 

Are the devices that are going out all in the same area of the house? are there any patterns to go off of? 

5Ghz doesn't work well on the first floor here. I would like to explore this access point idea. Can I add devices that will act as a new access point, without setting up all my other devices again? Is this what those WiFi range extenders do? Because I've tried thouse before, and they'd work for a bit then they'd say they got discoennected from the network and any devices connected to them would stop working. 

[Xanthe_2871]

3 hours ago, Tzomb1e said:

Just to comment on this, try and make the devices you move to the 5Ghz band closer to the source access point.  The more walls the signal has to pass through, the weaker the signal with 5Ghz.  Still an issue with 2.4Ghz, but more of an issue with 5Ghz. 

 

I would be curious to have a more detailed layout of your network.  If there are multiple "routers" in the environment, your routing can fail if layer 3 packets cannot be routed properly to the primary gateway.  There could also be DNS issues at play here too, which does result in the fun "connected with no internet access" message in windows.

Upstairs is the modem router combo box from the ISP. It has one connection to a 3rd party Linksys router. That rounter is connected to a computer, the modem, a DirecTV box, and a cable running downstairs. In the kitchen downstairs there is a 5 port gigabit switch, connected to a WD NAS, a MagicJack, and a power line Ethernet. Then in the garage is the other side of the power line with another switch, connected to two dekstop computers and another NAS device. 

 

Wirelessly over 2.4 GHz I have two laptops, 5 Google Homes, 2 Chromecasts, 2 Chromecast Audios, a printer, a few smartphones, a Nintendo Switch, and a WiFi light switch. 

 

On my 5Ghz I have 4 more Google Homes, 2 more Chromecasts, a few more smartphones, and two WiFi Speakers.

[BakugoHero]

16 hours ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

5Ghz doesn't work well on the first floor here. I would like to explore this access point idea. Can I add devices that will act as a new access point, without setting up all my other devices again? Is this what those WiFi range extenders do? Because I've tried those before, and they'd work for a bit then they'd say they got disconnected from the network and any devices connected to them would stop working. 

The difference between a range extender and a access point. a range extender is basically a middle man that passes things between the access point and the device that is out of normal range. these can work but rely on you existing wifi access point to still complete all of work for each device. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_repeater

 

adding an access point will give another device for your wifi devices to talk to completely and another input output source that is generally fed via a Ethernet line to the AP. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_access_point

 

Cafeteria analogy - Range extender just is a middle man to run trays further out to people but still has one cashier that everything has to go through. an Access point is like adding another cashier in the further out area so people can form separate lines.

 

the range extender won't help the "capacity" of your existing wireless infrastructure can serve properly, an access point does add extra wireless capacity but there are some things to watch out for, bearing in mind that your conduit for wifi is essentially "air", if you you just blast more into the air it won't help anything and could cause worse issues. Based on the description you provided of your setup, I would add an extra access point to your setup away from what is providing the wifi now, maybe on the first floor where your 5Ghz isn't working well as long as you can run a wire. 

 

This isn't a product endorsement but a device like the one below might also help you as they appear to act like access point but are sold as a range extender. 

https://www.tp-link.com/us/products/details/cat-5034_TL-WPA4220KIT.html

 

I hope this helps!

 

 

[Tzomb1e]

On 11/27/2018 at 5:35 PM, Xanthe_2871 said:

Upstairs is the modem router combo box from the ISP. It has one connection to a 3rd party Linksys router. That rounter is connected to a computer, the modem, a DirecTV box, and a cable running downstairs. In the kitchen downstairs there is a 5 port gigabit switch, connected to a WD NAS, a MagicJack, and a power line Ethernet. Then in the garage is the other side of the power line with another switch, connected to two dekstop computers and another NAS device. 

 

Wirelessly over 2.4 GHz I have two laptops, 5 Google Homes, 2 Chromecasts, 2 Chromecast Audios, a printer, a few smartphones, a Nintendo Switch, and a WiFi light switch. 

 

On my 5Ghz I have 4 more Google Homes, 2 more Chromecasts, a few more smartphones, and two WiFi Speakers.

Are both the modem/router combo and the Linksys router configured to handle DHCP and DNS requests?  Having two "servers" handling these requests can cause issues with hosts trying to acquire new IP leases and also in attempting to resolve server names.  I would decide which device you want to be the default gateway for your environment and disable those functions on the other if you have not already done so. 

[Xanthe_2871]

On 11/29/2018 at 8:03 AM, Tzomb1e said:

Are both the modem/router combo and the Linksys router configured to handle DHCP and DNS requests?  Having two "servers" handling these requests can cause issues with hosts trying to acquire new IP leases and also in attempting to resolve server names.  I would decide which device you want to be the default gateway for your environment and disable those functions on the other if you have not already done so. 

No, but thanks! I did fix that a while ago when I first added this new router.